The invention relates to a dispenser for media, which is in particular suitable for a stored medium and a separately stored, identical or non-identical, second, flowable medium having different possible states. Such media can be gaseous or slightly volatile, liquid or pasty, and/or pulverulent.
According to the invention, a manually operable pump is proposed, with at least one pump chamber and with at least one outlet channel leading to a dispensing opening, so that the dispenser is simple to use and construct.
The invention avoids the disadvantages of known solutions. The invention is also more particularly directed to a dispenser of the aforementioned type that dispenses or discharges a stored medium with the aid of a further delivery or carrier medium.
The dispenser includes a chamber, in which a precise dose of a first medium, in a fresh form, is stored and protected over a long period of time. The chamber is substantially tightly sealed in its starting position. The chamber is connected in line with the pump and the pumped medium flows through the chamber during operation. The stored medium is dispensed from the medium chamber and is optionally delivered in a single pump stroke to the dispensing opening. If the stored medium is a pulverulent medium, then it is appropriately fluidized with a gaseous pumping medium and is forced from one end of the medium chamber and out through the opposite end.
The pumping medium can be pressurized in a first partial stroke from the starting position to the point where the connection is opened to the medium chamber. Appropriately the medium chamber is located on the pressure side and not the suction side of the pump, so that the stored medium does not flow through the pumping chamber. By an appropriate control the medium chamber can be opened prior to the start of the pump stroke at the inlet and/or at the outlet by a suitable sequence control. If it is necessary to overcome a resilient catch by applying a corresponding operating pressure to initiate the pump Stroke, this automatically leads to a sudden operation of the pump and therefore to the dispensing of the medium in a single spurt. For obtaining higher flow rates of the pumping medium, the connecting channel between the pump chamber and the medium chamber has much smaller passage cross-sections than one or both chambers, the passage cross-sections possibly decreasing in the medium chamber direction.
The cross-sectional storage area of the medium chamber has at least one interruption or at least one filler located within its outer circumferential boundary, so that the stored medium, despite the large dispensing volume, forms only relatively small solid sections.
Advantageously, the dispenser is constructed in such a way that it can be carried and simultaneously reliably operated with the fingers, or with three fingers of one hand, and can be used, for example, in the manner of an oral spray. The dispenser can be constructed as a disposable dispenser which, following the emptying of the medium chamber, does not have to be refilled and can therefore be constructed as a simple standard component, which receives the pump, the stored medium, the channels and optionally, valves or closures within an outer casing, which in side view can be roughly T-shaped or Y-shaped. If the dispenser, namely the pump chamber and medium chamber, is to be emptied in a single pump stroke in successive portions or in one complete pump stroke, and is not to be refilled, then both chambers can be substantially tightly closed with respect to the outside in the starting position and the pump chamber requires no valve and at least no inlet valve. In some embodiments, a medium chamber can be constructed in one piece with a one-piece construction of a pump chamber forming a pump cylinder. In some embodiments, a further medium chamber can optionally be provided in at least one component separate from the pump chamber, for example, with at least one boundary forming a standard component with a pump piston and/or with at least one boundary forming a one-piece standard component with a casing or basic body of the dispenser, with an outlet channel or the like.
In an axial view, the dispenser is suitably elongated, so that it forms one or two facing flat sides passing into one another via two opposite edges of tight curvature permitting the dispenser to find its most stable position on the flat sides, so that it preferably assumes the corresponding horizontal position. If, in this case, the operating handles are positioned transversely to the horizontal plane and are freely accessible and remote from one another, whilst optionally being axially spaced, then the dispenser can easily be gripped at its handles and can also be operated with the fingers assuming the same gripping position. Both facing flat walls of the casing can be traversed by thumb engagement openings, which together form a receptacle for a thumb, so that all the functional parts of the dispenser are protected substantially completely within the casing. The dispenser has thin thumb cutouts which at an end remote from the dispensing opening, form a fork with two substantially rigid and roughly parallel, freely projecting fork fingers. This allows the dispenser, particularly after operation, to be carried in the manner of a clip on the finger or thumb, which facilitates manipulations immediately following dispensing.
Said parts of the pump and/or the medium chamber can, be fixed by means of a plug connection to a basic body, preferably at least as one closed standard unit, which preferably forms the outer casing. In the interior, the plug connection has a projecting plug tongue, with which the standard unit is connected roughly in the direction of the pump operation. It is also possible to have two piston-like components or the like spaced from one another on a shaft, which is guided in a bore narrower than the piston, so that the associated standard component is limited by stops in both displacement directions. In one direction the displacement of the associated piston can at least partly be limited by the stored medium. At least one opening of the medium chamber, or its outlet and/or inlet can, in a substantially valve-free manner, be closed solely by operation of a labyrinthine channel or the like. The stored medium only flows through such a labyrinthine channel when it is under a correspondingly high operating pressure or has been transported by a carrier medium.
These and other features of the invention will be apparent from the disclosure provided by the claims, the description and the drawings, which follow. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate examples of the invention. Such examples,, however, are not exhaustive of the various embodiments of the invention and, therefore, reference is made to the claims which follow the description for determining the scope of the invention.